Create internal markets for ideas, talent & resources

“Organizations need a resource allocation process that more accurately mimics the selection pressures of a real market.”

Funding decisions in corporations are usually made at the top and are heavily influenced by political factors. That’s why companies over-invest in the past and underfund the future. By contrast, resource allocation in a market-based system like the New York Stock Exchange is decentralized and apolitical. While markets are obviously vulnerable to short-term distortions, in the long run they’re better than big organizations at getting the right resources behind the right opportunities. To make resource allocation more flexible and dynamic, companies must create internal markets where legacy programs and new projects compete on an equal footing for talent and cash.

The Morning Star Company is one of the world’s leading processors of tomatoes—and one of the most progressive models of a self-managed enterprise we’ve seen. In this Mashup session, Paul Green, the co-founder of the Self-Management Institute and, until recently, Morning Star’s head of development, describes the company’s extraordinary—and extraordinarily effective—approach to replacing manager-management with peer- and self-management.

The founders of TopCoder and Tongal, the world's largest communities of talented and impassioned software developers and digital creators, make the case for the value of “creative populism,” share the new rules for activating, enlisting, and organizing talent in the social, mobile and digital age—and unpack their disruptive models for the future of work and value creation.